Pls help me decide on a stop-gap upgrade (CAD currency)

[JediMindTricks]

So, my issue is that my current potato is a dinosaur, windows 10 will soon expire and my pc does not support windows 11 (without workarounds), and I still have about 2 years of school left to justify an all-out monster build.

My current pc:

CPU: i5-3570k at stock with a wannabe DH-14 built by Phanteks
RAM: 8gb of ddr3 at 1600mhz
MOBO: Asus Maximus, not that it matters, platform is dead
GPU: gtx 680
Case: a huge ass Coolermaster, anything can fit in it
Storage: 2 ssds, but I won't migrate them to the new build

I will keep this new build for 2-4 years, while I finish school, and hopefully the economy and politics stabilize in Canada, and maybe the gpu market will stop sucking. I mainly play rts, so Age of empires, Sins 2, Tempest Rising, Supreme Commander, Sanctuary, Civ, etc. with some Dota 2 or other games here and there. Def no Cyberpunk or anything like that.

My budget is around 150-250 for the cpu, and the remaining parts should reflect a similar low budget, no expensive $400 mobos.

I looked around and AMD is pretty non-existent at this price range.

So, here's what I have in mind, and pls adjust as needed.

CPU: 12400f up to a 12600k/kf (I will keep cpu at stock, no overclock) and I want to avoid Raptor Lake, Raptor Lake refresh and Arrow Lake, unless you have a good argument for them. I could be convinced to spring for the i7-12700k/kf if it's worth the extra $40 for the 2 extra performance cores
RAM: 2x16gb of ddr4 or ddr5. In either case, I want Hynix A die for ddr5 (around 6000mhz or 6400, not sure what speed Alder Lake can handle) or the equivalent for ddr4
MOBO: Not sure what chipset, z690 or w/e there's too many of them. But I do want it to be rock solid and to run my cpu and ram with no problems
Storage: I need 2 pieces, one for os and one for games. Don't mind Sata ssds
GPU: I have a 1070, for the moment I will stick with this, can't afford anything at the current prices
Case: I have no preference as long as it's silent and cools well
Cpu cooler: stock is fine, or maybe something non-stock if it's not too expensive, def got no money for liquid cooling, just air.

Everything else I have, 1440p monitor at 144hz and all needed accessories.

Don't forget to put pcpartpicker in CAD when looking for recommendations. Thank you.

 

[nomdeplume]

Chase and I do mean CHASE the lowest cost processor and best mobo from either red or blue. Anywhere you can find a decent non-abused set of hardware. Then dump whatever you can feel safe to afford on the gpu because that is the sad and continually worsening reality.

 

[Marcus L]

What's your total budget, just saying around this for CPU and mobo gives no idea to your total budget, Ryzen 7600 is less than $200 CAD my bad it's $270 CAD which is a tad higher than your 250 max budget and likewise motherboards can be had $200 give or take, so not sure why you're saying they are out of your price, what is the total amount of budget you can stretch to

 

[JediMindTricks]

I mean, total budget for cpu+ram+mobo is 450 to 600 CAD, and then just add 2 storage and a case.

 

[Marcus L]

PSU?

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/YMsF3wv

 

[JediMindTricks]

Your link is not working. PSU I'll keep using the same one I have now, a Seasonic Gold 750/760 watts from forever ago

 

[redeye]

yes, windows will expire, but windows will still work... the fear, uncertainty, doubt about Windows 10 is about businesses…

keep the system you have, get ssd’s, upgrade to 16 GB. that is the easiest upgrade. then decide on the graphics card…

go to Canada computers ask the sales person what graphics card would be best for your system. perhaps a gtx4060?

 

[JediMindTricks]

yes, windows will expire, but windows will still work... the fear, uncertainty, doubt about Windows 10 is about businesses…

keep the system you have, get ssd’s, upgrade to 16 GB. that is the easiest upgrade. then decide on the graphics card…

I would love to keep it, but it is showing its age. I am running all games on low settings already, and it is still choking. My only upgrade on my current platform would be to get the i7-3770k, but since it's so old, they cost more than modern cpus.

At a minimum, 12400f, at most a modern i5 or an older i7 like 12700k. AMD has nothing at my budget that competes with this.

 

[Marcus L]

Your link is not working. PSU I'll keep using the same one I have now, a Seasonic Gold 750/760 watts from forever ago

Try copy and paste it into edge I'll screenshot it otherwise

I use Firefox and for some reason it's not working for me in that either but worked in edge when I tried

 

[nomdeplume]

Scour the used market around and inside your uni. i5-8xxx and a GTX1070 is 10000x more valid for two years of light gaming and low amount of Canadian Kopecks. Splurge on a 3060ti if you want sorta RT in the mix.

Edit: Oops, meant 1070

 

[JediMindTricks]

Try copy and paste it into edge I'll screenshot it otherwise

I use Firefox and for some reason it's not working for me in that either but worked in edge when I tried


View attachment 395869

9600x is $30 more, worth it?

 

[Marcus L]

9600x is $30 more, worth it?

Save what you can if it is only going to last you 2-4 years time, before you know it, another $30 here, $20 there and it all adds up, of course if you can stretch to 9600x without it affecting your overall budget too much then yea, go for 9600x, but for gaming and in your case, with a 1070 atm, you won't see any true benefit going to 9600x from 7600, save what you can for a GPU upgrade down the line which is where you will see the best gains, maybe RX 9060/XT in 6-12 months at <$400 would be an ideal drop in upgrade and that would truly last you for your use case scenario until you build a higher end rig, you could still stick with AM5 as well just upgrading the CPU and GPU at that point

 

[JediMindTricks]

Okay, I have until end of the year anyway. Maybe it will go down in price even more for prime day or something, and then for the same price, I'll get the 9600x.

GPU unfortunately, NVIDIA has nothing for me, maybe the 9060/960xt like you said, the 8gb variants since I expect the 16gb to be too high a price.

We shall see I guess.

The ram is Hynix A-die?

 

[LabRat 891]

Cheap, big upgrade. But, requires time to fiddle w/, deal with issues, etc.:
'Import' X99 Quad-Channel DDR4 board + 4 matching sticks of cheap DDR4-2400, and a 8c16t 2667v4 3.2Ghz base 3.6Ghz Turbo, Broadwell Core

Ryzen 1700 - 2700 performance; Quad-Channel helps compensate considerably for lack of fast DDR4/DDR5.

~$50-100 for the board
~$15-20 for the CPU
~$30-60 for RAM

Otherwise, I'd look at entry-level AM5 boards and something like a used 7600x (or better), 2x16GB DDR5, etc.
Sadly, used pricing on currently-still-selling-new kit is all sorts of messed up. It's fairly common to find better new (on sale) pricing, than used.


On the GPU-side... It's all terrible.
The 1070 you have now, will see a pretty big uplift w/ less/no CPU bottleneck.

 

[lambda]

@JediMindTricks
I know this is not the question/remark you are looking for but what's wrong with running Windows 10 and sticking with the current setup?

EOL doesn't mean that you have to move to newer gen parts, the existing stuff continues to function just fine (usually).

 

[JediMindTricks]

Cheap, big upgrade. But, requires time to fiddle w/, deal with issues, etc.:
'Import' X99 Quad-Channel DDR4 board + 4 matching sticks of cheap DDR4-2400, and a 8c16t 2667v4 3.2Ghz base 3.6Ghz Turbo, Broadwell Core

Ryzen 1700 - 2700 performance; Quad-Channel helps compensate considerably for lack of fast DDR4/DDR5.

~$50-100 for the board
~$15-20 for the CPU
~$30-60 for RAM

Otherwise, I'd look at entry-level AM5 boards and something like a used 7600x (or better), 2x16GB DDR5, etc.
Sadly, used pricing on currently-still-selling-new kit is all sorts of messed up. It's fairly common to find better new (on sale) pricing, than used.


On the GPU-side... It's all terrible.
The 1070 you have now, will see a pretty big uplift w/ less/no CPU bottleneck.

You have no idea, in some games my cpu is at 100% and gpu at 10% lol

 

[Macro Device]

I want to avoid Raptor Lake

If the price is right and the exact unit is fresh enough then there's no reason to avoid it. Latest BIOS fixes the overvoltage issue. Oxidation already killed everything it could.

if it's worth the extra $40 for the 2 extra performance cores

You play a very random set of games. It's worth it. 40 CAD is nada for this. But I'd rather go for a 13600KF. It generally does a better job.

I have a 1070, for the moment I will stick with this

It can even play Cyberpunk.

Yes, my GPU is a 6700 XT but I tuned it all the way down to 1300 MHz (stock is 2600). This is 1.5x the 1060's performance, or almost exactly what an OCed 1070 can do. 1440p, High preset, but with XeSS at Balanced. You would stick to FSR because XeSS doesn't work well on an old GPU like this.

or the equivalent for ddr4

This should be enough. By the time you upgrade your CPU the DDR5 you can afford now will become a bottleneck anyway.

maybe something non-stock if it's not too expensive

Peerless Assassin must do the trick (stock cooler is fine for 12400F if you go this route for whatever reason). Don't forget the special LGA1700 bracket for better geometry.

MOBO: Not sure what chipset, z690 or w/e there's too many of them. But I do want it to be rock solid and to run my cpu and ram with no problems

Any decent B660 or B760 will do just fine for a 13600KF / 12700KF working at stock. Z is only necessary if you go overclocking and as you stated, you won't do it. I'd personally go AsRock, but it's literally a pick your poison situation, just get whatever has all the ports you want.

 

[JediMindTricks]

@JediMindTricks
I know this is not the question/remark you are looking for but what's wrong with running Windows 10 and sticking with the current setup?

EOL doesn't mean that you have to move to newer gen parts, the existing stuff continues to function just fine (usually).

While I don't play that much, when I do play, I'm kind of sick of my pc choking at the games I play, even on lowest settings. Almost 13 years old cpu, time to move on.

Besides, what's the point of studying and working if I don't treat myself from time to time.

If the price is right and the exact unit is fresh enough then there's no reason to avoid it. Latest BIOS fixes the overvoltage issue. Oxidation already killed everything it could.

You play a very random set of games. It's worth it. 40 CAD is nada for this. But I'd rather go for a 13600KF. It generally does a better job.

It can even play Cyberpunk.
View attachment 395909
Yes, my GPU is a 6700 XT but I tuned it all the way down to 1300 MHz (stock is 2600). This is 1.5x the 1060's performance, or almost exactly what an OCed 1070 can do. 1440p, High preset, but with XeSS at Balanced. You would stick to FSR because XeSS doesn't work well on an old GPU like this.

This should be enough. By the time you upgrade your CPU the DDR5 you can afford now will become a bottleneck anyway.

Peerless Assassin must do the trick (stock cooler is fine for 12400F if you go this route for whatever reason). Don't forget the special LGA1700 bracket for better geometry.

Any decent B660 or B760 will do just fine for a 13600KF / 12700KF working at stock. Z is only necessary if you go overclocking and as you stated, you won't do it. I'd personally go AsRock, but it's literally a pick your poison situation, just get whatever has all the ports you want.

I looked at i5 from Alder Lake all the way to Raptop Lake refresh. Still, they are around the same price as 7600/9600x and perform worse from what I saw, especially at the low 0.1% and 1%.

Also, with Intel I'd need higher ram speeds. DDR4 4000mhz at cas 14/16 or something like that, which is more expensive than ddr5

 

[lambda]

While I don't play that much, when I do play, I'm kind of sick of my pc choking at the games I play, even on lowest settings. Almost 13 years old cpu, time to move on.

Besides, what's the point of studying and working if I don't treat myself from time to time.

Well then, here's a CPU and Motherboard combo that should be ok for your needs.

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/HPdbh3

I have not added the RAM since I don't know which ones are performant enough off the top of my head.

The AM5 platform is still kinda pricey for me locally plus the additional cost of DDR5, I don't like it.

 

[Bobaganoosh]

So bearing in mind you're using old gpus that might give up on you, I opted for a cpu with a really good iGPU as a backup. The case is just something that looked ok for the cheap price.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 8600G 4.3 GHz 6-Core Processor ($259.00 @ Amazon Canada)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Assassin X 120 PLUS V2 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler ($25.90 @ Amazon Canada)
Motherboard: ASRock B650M Pro RS Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard ($203.12 @ Amazon Canada)
Memory: Patriot Viper Venom 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory ($118.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN580 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($86.96 @ shopRBC)
Case: Montech X3 Mesh ATX Mid Tower Case ($99.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Total: $793.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-04-20 08:47 EDT-0400

 

[iameatingjam]

At a minimum, 12400f

I think a 12400f is a good choice for a cpu. GPU... thats the tough one... there really aren't any great options. I mean, getting something better than your current card shouldn't be hard, but getting anything modern for a good price, not a good time for that.... IDK. 2060 or 1070 or 1080 ti.... would be much better than your current card. But still dated and lacking modern features ( the pascal cards.... the 2060 would more be lacking vram as the problem... there are 12gb variants but more expensive)

I tried a b580 as a backup card and I don't know why, but it just acted weird, didn't want to pull more than 80w. I could get it to pull 170 in furmark. But in games it would both not hit the frame target (60) AND be only pulling 80w. I don't know why, I tried ddu but I wasn't into too much trouble shooting and just brought it back. But some people have had good luck with them. They don't like weak CPUs however. The 12400 is kinda on the edge of being acceptable for it. I think there's a video of them paired together....

here:

Other than that for modern cheapest GPUs... your looking at 3050 or 6600/xt/7600/xt. The 3050 will choke on demanding games even at 1080p, but still much better than your card and may work for your use case if you don't want to go the used/intel or amd routes.

 

[redeye]

While I don't play that much, when I do play, I'm kind of sick of my pc choking at the games I play, even on lowest settings. Almost 13 years old cpu, time to move on.

Besides, what's the point of studying and working if I don't treat myself from time to time.



I looked at i5 from Alder Lake all the way to Raptop Lake refresh. Still, they are around the same price as 7600/9600x and perform worse from what I saw, especially at the low 0.1% and 1%.

Also, with Intel I'd need higher ram speeds. DDR4 4000mhz at cas 14/16 or something like that, which is more expensive than ddr5

Forget Intel that’s old-school thinking, AMD is where the action is. am5 ftw.

cheap out on the graphics using a low end amd gpu. spend the rest on a high end AMD processor.

but your budget is going have to be 2x what you stated.


with that in mind if you’re used to a gtx680, I am pretty sure the integrated graphics on a amd rx 5700g are better than a gtx680.

but with the existing budget, an amd AM4 system will meet your budget. (but it’s the GPU that’ll blow your budget.)

 

[JediMindTricks]

They have a sale on the 12600kf now, almost same price as a 12400f. I can save about $200-300 by going with this vs a 7600/9600x.

Offer expires end of June so I still have time to look around, but so far my options are:

1. 12400f/12600kf with ddr4/ddr5
2. 7600/9600x with ddr5

I can't believe the motherboard will cost me more than the cpu, crazy times. I'll keep my 1070, it has 8gb and good enough for the next 2-4 years (or wait and see how the 9060xt 8gb/16gb perform and cost) until the market stabilizes, if it ever does.....

 

[AusWolf]

If you're 2 years away from the budget to build a decent rig, and your current one still serves your needs, then I'd suggest waiting. Just because Windows 10 will stop receiving updates soon it doesn't mean you can't use it.

A stopgap only means buying parts that are below your standards, which ultimately, eats into your budget for the final build. Not worth it, imo.

 

[Why_Me]

So, my issue is that my current potato is a dinosaur, windows 10 will soon expire and my pc does not support windows 11 (without workarounds), and I still have about 2 years of school left to justify an all-out monster build.

My current pc:

CPU: i5-3570k at stock with a wannabe DH-14 built by Phanteks
RAM: 8gb of ddr3 at 1600mhz
MOBO: Asus Maximus, not that it matters, platform is dead
GPU: gtx 680
Case: a huge ass Coolermaster, anything can fit in it
Storage: 2 ssds, but I won't migrate them to the new build

I will keep this new build for 2-4 years, while I finish school, and hopefully the economy and politics stabilize in Canada, and maybe the gpu market will stop sucking. I mainly play rts, so Age of empires, Sins 2, Tempest Rising, Supreme Commander, Sanctuary, Civ, etc. with some Dota 2 or other games here and there. Def no Cyberpunk or anything like that.

My budget is around 150-250 for the cpu, and the remaining parts should reflect a similar low budget, no expensive $400 mobos.

I looked around and AMD is pretty non-existent at this price range.

So, here's what I have in mind, and pls adjust as needed.

CPU: 12400f up to a 12600k/kf (I will keep cpu at stock, no overclock) and I want to avoid Raptor Lake, Raptor Lake refresh and Arrow Lake, unless you have a good argument for them. I could be convinced to spring for the i7-12700k/kf if it's worth the extra $40 for the 2 extra performance cores
RAM: 2x16gb of ddr4 or ddr5. In either case, I want Hynix A die for ddr5 (around 6000mhz or 6400, not sure what speed Alder Lake can handle) or the equivalent for ddr4
MOBO: Not sure what chipset, z690 or w/e there's too many of them. But I do want it to be rock solid and to run my cpu and ram with no problems
Storage: I need 2 pieces, one for os and one for games. Don't mind Sata ssds
GPU: I have a 1070, for the moment I will stick with this, can't afford anything at the current prices
Case: I have no preference as long as it's silent and cools well
Cpu cooler: stock is fine, or maybe something non-stock if it's not too expensive, def got no money for liquid cooling, just air.

Everything else I have, 1440p monitor at 144hz and all needed accessories.

Don't forget to put pcpartpicker in CAD when looking for recommendations. Thank you.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *Intel Core i5-12400F 2.5 GHz 6-Core Processor ($153.95 @ Vuugo)
CPU Cooler: *Deepcool AG400 75.89 CFM CPU Cooler ($24.99 @ Canada Computers)
Motherboard: *MSI PRO B760-P WIFI DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($199.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Memory: *TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan Z 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($59.99 @ Canada Computers)
Storage: *Patriot P400 Lite 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($135.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Case: *Montech AIR 903 BASE ATX Mid Tower Case ($85.12 @ Vuugo)
Total: $660.03
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-04-20 23:27 EDT-0400